Orion Alternative School

12/01/2025

What’s the latest update on Orion Alternative Elementary School’s modernization and construction progress? Learn more here: https://bit.ly/4pElbHd

05/10/2025

Today Orion Alternative celebrated the Dragon Boat Festival. The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as Duanwu Jie, is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, typically around June or July. It's primarily known for dragon boat races, a sport linked to the legend of Qu Yuan, a poet and court official who drowned himself in protest. The festival also involves eating zongzi (rice dumplings) and various other cultural activities.
There was food, art and crafts, and Dragon boats were raced guided by the hands of Teacher David. Families from both programs celebrated this fun and enchanting event.

05/10/2025

Congratulations Orion Alternative School!

The school's Parent Co-Op Program has been honored with The Kent Award by the San Mateo County School Boards Association for its Multicultural Studies Program! The prestigious Kent Award recognizes innovative educational initiatives in our community.

Orion’s students have driven this enriching program by nominating and voting on countries or regions to study. Led by parents, it features hands-on activities that foster cultural awareness and celebrate diversity.

Throughout the school year, the program integrates multicultural learning into the curriculum, ensuring that students see their backgrounds represented and valued. The highlight is a weeklong multicultural experience culminating in an all-community open house, where students proudly share their discoveries.

Congratulations to Orion Alternative School for this well-deserved recognition of their commitment to cultural enrichment and community collaboration!

11/08/2024

02/11/2024

Cultivating well rounded education Our Mandarin program and parent participation program celebrated Lunar New year Thursday with an assembly showcasing our Mandarin Program. Students in the Mandarin program took to the stage and sang fabulously in Mandarin to celebrate the beginning of Lunar New year. All students were even surprised by Mandarin students from Kennedy Middle school who also performed.
This wonderful event continued on Friday with the entire school getting to experience a Lunar New Year lantern Festival which included Lion Dancers, awards from the school lantern contest, games, arts, crafts, food, a photo booth and even a Chinese wishing tree.
During our Lion Dancer performance, we were graced by Dr. John Baker and Redwood City Major, Jeff Gee.

10/30/2023

Our amazing students were given a fabulous assembly thanks to Redwood City Library representative, Armando, who came to teach our students about Dia De Los Mu***os. We appreciate Redwood City Library for the continued multicultural education at our school.

10/25/2023

Dear Incoming Families,

As you are considering school options for your child for the upcoming school year, we would like to invite you to come and check out the Orion Alternative Co-op program! Orion Alternative is a "school of choice", meaning you can opt in to choosing Orion over your neighborhood school. Orion is a special community where parents, teachers, and staff are brought together to educate, foster global citizenship, and nurture the whole child. The Co-Op aspect of the school allows parents to be more involved with the school, by volunteering in the classrooms, helping organize events, and fostering a wonderful community. Orion also integrates curriculum for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) and has a beautiful new Makery space and a full-time Climate Corps fellow who is Orion’s Garden Educator. Please join us on one of the upcoming tours to see our updated campus, meet the principal and current parents, and get to know why Orion is such a special place.
We will be offering on campus tours for prospective parents throughout the year Wednesdays from 8:45-9:45 AM on the following dates:
11/8, 11/15, 11/29, 12/13, 1/10, 1/24, 2/7, 2/14, 3/6, and 3/13.

Please register for the tour using the following link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfsROLB1fSQ-ckAU_W3O08MkCs7XRpwYcUrFDev4vUZdQE9_w/viewform

10/23/2023

We celebrated Hispanic heritage month with a month of learning about famous Hispanics around the world. Each classroom then learned about one of the 21 Hispanic countries or territories. Last Friday, our entire school celebrated with Aztec dancers in a fabulous assembly. Thank you to the admin and parents who set up this amazing multicultural learning experience.

11/05/2022

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11/05/2022

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11/04/2022

Lisa Moore Ramee wrote her first book in second grade. It took some time before she got around to writing her second one. A Good Kind of Trouble, her debut novel, published in Spring 2019. Somethin…